Having grown up in a place like Mumbai, I should be used to crowds, traffic, protests, road rage, rains, accidents, and such other malarkey. I say malarkey because I’m immune to it, and so are most other Mumbaikars. Well, quite frankly, most of us are busy running from pillar to post to either get to our workplaces or back home, and that’s how the day is spent.

So, when we get the odd occasion – be it through work, or a leisurely weekend, or even a smart white lie to one’s boss – to get out of the city, there isn’t much in the way of hesitation. And that’s why I didn’t think twice when I got a call to go to Goa – my hometown – to drive Ford’s next offering in the Indian car market, the Fiesta automatic.

At first, I thought that the sound of the sea would keep me awake all night, and I was really looking forward to it – it had been light years since I’d been anywhere near the sea. Yes, even though I stay in Mumbai. But, then again, my colleague proved me wrong. The sea was calm, but there was a terrible whirlwind of snoring that kept me awake all night. So, it was with closed eyes and a yawn every 15 seconds that I headed off to drive Ford’s latest baby. The Fiesta will now be available with an automatic transmission, and knowing that was small comfort since I could at least do away with one half of my body. So, a good rest was in store, and I was least bothered about the traffic or the small by-lanes of my hometown.

And, one has to admit that the front-end of the Fiesta has a lot going its way. In plain terms – it’s gorgeous. But, when you prance around to the other side and see the rear, it just punctures your excitement. It’s anything but gorgeous, so I was just happy that I’d be leading the pack and would be spared the ‘hind-sight’ during the drive.



So, why did Ford want to come out with an automatic transmission for the Fiesta? Well, there are a lot of probable explanations, and one of them is, likely, competition. But, it all begins to make sense once you start driving around on winding roads of Goa during peak rush hour traffic. It’s a cruise, as you brake and accelerate and don’t have to change gears. You stop, you start, and you might think this would bring in some level of monotony, but it doesn’t. It all makes sense when you see a pile up of around 50 cars, and know you don’t have to change gears every time a car moves. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it fills ones heart with joy – the kind of joy that only those living in crowded metros can understand.

Ford uses its PowerShift dual-clutch six-speed automatic transmission in the 1.5 liter Ti-VCT petrol variant. There are two clutches, and the first one operates the odd gears while the second handles the even gears. This makes for quick shifts, as well as acceleration while also handling issues of fuel efficiency. While the company claims that the clutch has a life of 10 years, they are still working on details such as the duration of the powertrain warranty.

In theory, though, it’s great. But, what about when you try and accelerate the automatic Fiesta – you expect it to hit the mark and run. But somehow, it’s a little more laid back than that. It almost underestimates the driver’s urgency and you can feel the reluctance of the transmission to shift. It takes the same time for the Fiesta to move from a standstill as it takes me to finish my long yawn, which is rather annoying.



Another annoying part is that you never know which gear you’re in as there isn’t a gear-shift indicator on the instrument cluster. So, I went for the conventional method – listening intently as the gears changed. The PowerShift technology does away with the torque convertor, which does well for fuel efficiency, but it takes the fun out from the car. If you want to overtake the car in front of you, be certain that power is something that will not come at will – and this is when you’ll miss the manual intervention. It’s at times like this that you imagine yourself downshifting and pedaling the gas to give you that feeling of taming the machine

As I tried to speed away from the rest of the cavalcade, I also tried to think of uses for my left hand, so I fiddled with the controls on the steering and checked out the space inside. The first thing you notice is that the Fiesta is a compact car, and it feels as though you’re driving a hatch – albeit a spacious one, which is really what the Fiesta is in Europe. And yes, it’s loaded with features like Bluetooth, Aux-In, Radio, CD/MP3 player, USB, Climate Control, Cruise Control and Voice Control technology, which operates everything starting from your phone to the climate control. The only fine print viz. voice control is that you have to read the owners manual for instructions – but it’s a delight to use once you know the commands. What the Fiesta doesn’t have is a central locking system though, which again raises my eyebrow. I mean, why not? It’s the simplest of the lot, isn’t it?



That apart, there is another clever addition to the feature list, and that is the hill start. It helps you take those steep slopes, as the brakes remain engaged for 2.5 seconds after you lift your foot off the brake pedal. Also, like all Ford’s, the ride and handling capability of the Fiesta is brilliant – though I do miss the rowdiness of its predecessor (now the Fiesta Classic). But, then again, times change and so must we.

Ford has shown that they’ve moved the game on with all this great technology – and they’re giving the average Indian car buyer the kind of tech that we could only have dreamt of until very recently. So, yes, it’s a good car – it’s a city car that’s made for you to ply in and out of city traffic with, day in and day out. The auto-box just helps you relax and ignore the traffic, while the features in the cabin keep you entertained along the way. However, automatic transmissions haven’t really been popular in India thus far. But, with traffic in our cities headed from bad to worse, their time, it seems, has come. Nevertheless, that question can only really be answered with the sales charts – so, best of luck Fiesta.